Unpredictability is omnipresent in life, from dealing playing cards, through contracting an illness or getting promoted, to the rise or fall of equity markets. For those attempting to make the calls on…

Is the falling carbon price as dangerous as everyone is saying?
caribb/Flickr15 mai 2013

Discussion of the federal budget has featured much doom-mongering. This is exemplified by forecasts of a A$6-8 billion black hole in 2015-16, when the carbon tax switches to an emissions trading scheme…

Despite the notorious unreliability of forward estimates, the government has included projections for a 10-year period in this year’s federal budget.
Image from www.shutterstock.com15 mai 2013

When assessing some of the assumptions underpinning Wayne Swan’s 2013 federal budget, two things spring to mind: the Henry Tax Review and the notorious inaccuracy of forward estimates. History shows it…

The good times are over. That’s the message both parties are sending out ahead of the budget and September’s election. Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey promises major cuts to spending and welfare if the coalition…

If there’s one thing we can say with certainty, it’s that economic forecasting is far from an exact science.
Image from www.shutterstock.com3 mars 2013

One certainty about economic forecasts is that, almost certainly, they will prove to be incorrect. The best forecasters can hope for is not to make systematic errors – to get it right on average – and…

System 1 thinkers on the left, System 2 thinker on the right?
AAP13 mai 2012

It’s an old joke, but hard to resist around Budget time. That is, that economic forecasting was invented to make astrology look respectable. Over the past few days we’ve heard a lot about how notoriously…